Blessed Blogs

Photo Albums

February 18, 2013

Mark Boxer

Mark Boxer

In 1976 I was given the task of redesigning the covers for Anthony Powell’s
epic, A Dance to the Music of Time. This twelve-novel sequence
chronicles the lives of more than 300 characters in a unique evocation of 20th-century
life in England. At the time I was working as the art director of Fontana
Paperbacks and Powell's books originally had photographic covers like this:

Not my cup of tea but they did their job. Anyway, what to do? Powell had
created such an array of memorable characters that I thought we could select
key individuals for each cover. And that’s where Mark Boxer came in.

Not only was he the art director of Queen magazine, the founding editor of The
Sunday Times Magazine and the editor of Tatler but he was also a formidable
cartoonist, with a very endearing minimalist style:

Noël Coward by Mark Boxer ink and coloured crayon, 1983 NPG

Boxer's witty Prince Charles mug

He also cut a very suave figure: tall and swathed in hand-tailored suits and
often seen in the company of Anna Ford, a highly desirable newsreader at the
time (whom he later married). The pair cut a very attractive couple:

Anna Ford and Boxer

Boxer loved the commission and spent a lot of time perfecting each character
for the covers, with a lot of consultation with Anthony Powell himself.

The upshot was a wonderful set of classic covers, which I made into a double
boxset. They won a D&AD Silver Award in 1978. Sadly I haven’t got the boxes or a full set of the covers. But here are
a few that I have tracked down:

They continued to be used for many years after I left Fontana but were slowly
degraded by increasingly insensitive typography. Sadly Mark Boxer died of a
brain tumour in 1988 at the very young age of 57: a great loss.

TrackBack

Comments

Mark Boxer

Mark Boxer

In 1976 I was given the task of redesigning the covers for Anthony Powell’s
epic, A Dance to the Music of Time. This twelve-novel sequence
chronicles the lives of more than 300 characters in a unique evocation of 20th-century
life in England. At the time I was working as the art director of Fontana
Paperbacks and Powell's books originally had photographic covers like this:

Not my cup of tea but they did their job. Anyway, what to do? Powell had
created such an array of memorable characters that I thought we could select
key individuals for each cover. And that’s where Mark Boxer came in.

Not only was he the art director of Queen magazine, the founding editor of The
Sunday Times Magazine and the editor of Tatler but he was also a formidable
cartoonist, with a very endearing minimalist style:

Noël Coward by Mark Boxer ink and coloured crayon, 1983 NPG

Boxer's witty Prince Charles mug

He also cut a very suave figure: tall and swathed in hand-tailored suits and
often seen in the company of Anna Ford, a highly desirable newsreader at the
time (whom he later married). The pair cut a very attractive couple:

Anna Ford and Boxer

Boxer loved the commission and spent a lot of time perfecting each character
for the covers, with a lot of consultation with Anthony Powell himself.

The upshot was a wonderful set of classic covers, which I made into a double
boxset. They won a D&AD Silver Award in 1978. Sadly I haven’t got the boxes or a full set of the covers. But here are
a few that I have tracked down:

They continued to be used for many years after I left Fontana but were slowly
degraded by increasingly insensitive typography. Sadly Mark Boxer died of a
brain tumour in 1988 at the very young age of 57: a great loss.